When We Have Shuffled Off This Mortal Coil
by Tracy Diane Miller
Summary: A different spin on "Fate."


When We Have Shuffled Off This Mortal Coil  
  
Summary: A different spin on "Fate". The title was inspired by Hamlet's soliloquy.  
  
Disclaimer: Early Edition characters belong to whoever created them. No copyright infringement intended. No profit is being made. Some of the dialogue that appears in this story is not my own, but belongs to the writer of the Early Edition episode "Fate."  
  
Author: Tracy Diane Miller  
  
E-mail address: tdmiller82@hotmail.com  
  
  
  
When We Have Shuffled Off This Mortal Coil  
  
It was so cold that even the ground appeared to shiver under a dressing of snow and ice. The ground might have anticipated, perhaps hoped to have remained blissfully naked, but it was winter after all. The frigid temperatures paid homage to Mother Nature and the snow and ice were her mischievous children.  
  
He wore a black turtleneck shirt, jeans, and black leather jacket. Yet, despite the weather, a hat, scarf, and gloves were absent from his attire. One might have expected that his bones would ache under the chill, but he felt surprisingly warm as he gazed at the mourners. But a chill would come, it had to. It would be the kind of eerie chill born from the inexplicable. It would be the kind of chill that took root in the depths of the soul before belatedly conquering the rest of the body. It would be the kind of chill that one would experience when attending a funeral. The chill was more pronounced when it was the funeral of someone you knew, someone you were close to. That kind of chill was the offspring of intense grief mingled with the cold. It was so hard to find warmth again after that kind of chill.  
  
Shouldn't the chill be particularly unforgiving when you are an invisible voyeur at your own funeral?  
  
Mom always scolded him whenever he didn't wear his hat, scarf, and gloves in weather like this. "You'll catch a cold, Gary. Sometimes you are so hard headed. When are you going to learn to listen to your mother?" As a teenager, he sometimes was able to sneak out of the house without his hat and scarf. It was hard to be *cool* around the guys when you were the only one bundled up from head to toe. Sure the other guys were probably freezing, too. But they wouldn't show it. It was cool to act like the cold weather didn't bother you.  
  
Now, of course, it didn't matter because he was dead. If dead men tell no tales, they certainly didn't have to worry about an avenging and biting wind did they?  
  
"Lousy day to die." The nagging voice echoed in his head.  
  
"When is it ever a *good* day to die?" His inner voice retorted.  
  
"The choice is yours."  
  
He remembered being told that when his body and spirit lay battered in that abandoned carpet store. But he didn't *choose* to die. So why was he dead?  
  
The Paper had made the choice. The Paper had decided that it was his time to die. Death was his punishment for failing to save Jeremiah. Marissa refused to believe that. She believed that The Paper was buttressed on faith and hope not upon vengeance. The Paper wouldn't punish him, she argued. He did what he could.  
  
"No, I did what I did." His inner voice reminded him.  
  
Marissa was wrong. The early edition was supposed to offer an avenue for circumventing the destiny of an unsuspecting victim. And he had been entrusted by The Paper to defy the inevitable, to cheat disaster and death.  
  
One rung of that ladder at a time. One rung. Slowly. A wave of vertigo. He had to fight the vertigo. So sick to his stomach. He always hated heights. Ever since he was a kid.  
  
He made it across. He removed The Paper from the back pocket of his jeans. "Apartment Fire Kills 1". The headline continued to mock him. Laughing. Silent laughs, but he could hear them inside of his head. If he were being tested by the proprietors of The Paper, he was determined not to fail. He resolved to talk Jeremiah across that ladder.  
  
"Put the boot in your pocket". He commanded.  
  
Jeremiah complied. So jumpy. Jeremiah was so jumpy.  
  
One rung of that ladder at a time. One rung. Slowly. Jeremiah was almost across the ladder when he began to slip. Gary held tightly onto Jeremiah's hand. Jeremiah's hand felt so cold. The Grim Reaper had already taken its stronghold.  
  
A moment later, Gary watched in horror as Jeremiah plummeted to his death. He had failed.  
  
Marissa and Erica were shocked when he told them about his obituary in The Paper and when he revealed that he had gone to that carpet store.  
  
"How could you have gone there?" Erica had questioned him.  
  
"I was curious now wasn't I?" He replied.  
  
He was curious. Curious about the place where he was going to die. Curious about why he had gone there because the story in The Paper accompanying his obituary never said why he had gone there. Curious about why he couldn't stop himself from fulfilling Death's prophecy.  
  
Curious, but not suicidal. He hadn't gone there because he wanted to die. He never wanted to die.  
  
He remembered feeling the intense pain as the collapsed debris buried him. God, he couldn't breathe. He couldn't breathe. And then...  
  
Nothing.  
  
Nothing. No pain. And a bright light. He remembered seeing a bright light.  
  
He was dead.  
  
Gary watched as his family and friends were overtaken by grief. "Don't cry, Mom. Please, Mom. Don't cry."  
  
They couldn't hear him.  
  
"Lousy day to die. You sure you want to do this?" A voice asked him. But the voice wasn't inside of his head. He turned around. He saw an older man. It was the same man that he saw in that carpet store.  
  
"I'm already dead." Gary said bitterly.  
  
"No. The choice is yours. You can change all of this." The old man revealed.  
  
Gary stared at the man, a gleam of hope sparkling from confused mud green eyes. "But...but how?" Gary asked.  
  
  
  
The End. 


End file.
